Gerald M. Edelman Biography

American neuroscientist, professor, and author Gerald M. Edelman (born
1929) won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972 at the age
of 43. He went on to achieve equal prominence for his pioneering
theory of mind, referred to as "Neural Darwinism" or
"Neuronal Group Selection" (NGS). While his conclusions
about the fundamental workings of the human brain were often
controversial, they were never dull. Edelman's publications on
the subject included
Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, Bright
Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind
, and
Wider than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness
. He founded the Neurosciences Institute in New York City in 1981, and
moved it to La Jolla, California, in 1993.

Education and Training

Edelman was born on July 1, 1929, in New York City. His father, Edward,
was a physician and his mother, Anna, a homemaker. As he was growing up in
Ozone Park, Queens, and Long Beach, New York, science was not foremost in
his mind. Instead, he trained to be a concert violinist with noted
teacher/performer Albert Meiff. Music was to remain a consuming passion of
Edelman's over the years, but it was not to become his career.

After attending public schools in New York City through high school,
Edelman went to Collegeville, Pennsylvania, to study chemistry at Ursinus
College. He graduated magna cum laude in 1950 and then headed off to the
Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he received
an M.D. in 1954. In 1955 Edelman became a medical house officer at
Massachusetts General Hospital. Next up, he joined the U.S. Army Medical
Corps as a captain, and practiced general medicine at a military hospital
connected with American Hospital in Paris, France, for two years.

Upon his discharge from the army in 1957, Edelman returned to his hometown
to pursue a Ph.D. in biochemistry and immunology from the Rockefeller
Institute (now Rockefeller University). It was there, under the guidance
of Dr. Henry G. Kunkel, that Edelman began the research in immunology that
would lead to his Nobel Prize. His thesis explored methods of splitting
immunoglobulin molecules, or antibodies, and he received his doctorate in
1960.

Won Nobel Prize

After earning his Ph.D., Edelman stayed on at Rockefeller University as
assistant dean of Graduate Studies. In 1963 he became associate dean of
Graduate Studies, and in 1966 he became a full professor. He continued his
research in his own laboratory, and was soon making some groundbreaking
findings.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the understanding of the nature of antibodies was
scant. Their role in combating foreign substances, or antigens, in the
body was known, but their chemical structure and the way in which they
were able to recognize antigens was less clear. English biochemist Rodney
R. Porter was investigating the matter, as was Edelman. Throughout the
1960s each scientist came up with independent research, sometimes drawing
on one another's research, in order to explain the properties of
antibodies

more fully. By 1969 Edelman and his team at Rockefeller had succeeded in
creating a precise model of an antibody molecule, which was made up of a
four-amino-acid-chain (two light and two heavy chains) structure comprised
of more than 1,300 amino acids. This enabled the team to identify exact
locations of antigenic binding. Edelman's group had just narrowly
beaten Porter's in achieving such a goal, and both researchers were
awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972 for their
efforts. Their work had many far-reaching effects in medical therapy,
including preventing organ rejection in transplant situations. But
Edelman, just 43 years old at the time, had even more to offer the world
of science.

Neural Darwinism

After winning the Nobel Prize, Edelman changed his focus from immunology
to developmental biology and neuroscience. Specifically, he began to
investigate how the human body, and especially the brain, operates, by
honing in on cellular interactions in early embryonic development and the
formation and function of the nervous system. He quickly made innovative
inroads into this new area as well, beginning in 1975, when he discovered
cell adhesion molecules (CAMs). CAMs bind neurons together to form the
brain's fundamental circuitry, thereby guiding the basic processes
through which an animal achieves its shape and form and by which nervous
systems are constructed. While seminal in its own right, this work also
led to the larger theory for which Edelman is likely most famous, that of
"Neural Darwinism."

In 1981 Edelman founded the Neurosciences Institute as an independently
supported part of Rockefeller University (relocated to La Jolla,
California in 1993). Its mandate was to emphasize the scientific
"big picture" and investigate creative theories on the
workings of the brain, particularly as to higher brain function. Within
this organization, Edelman formulated his notable theory of mind.

Neural Darwinism, or Neuronal Group Selection (NGS), was first presented
in Edelman's 1987 book
Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection
. The idea is described in his biography on the Cajal Conference website
(citation below) as: "the theory that populations of neurons
develop individual networks through a Darwinian selection process.
[Edelman] thinks that the converse opinion, that neurons are genetically
coded to make specific connections, just as transistors are wired in a
preset pattern, is untenable given the very limited size of eukaryotic
genomes in relation with the explosive number of neuronal
connections." Further, Edelman argued against the traditional
concept of a fixed human nervous system, suggesting instead that neural
systems continuously change. That is, the human brain has variations
unique to each individual and modifies itself constantly in response to
each new incoming signal.

The forgoing explanation is, necessarily, an extremely simplified and
streamlined definition of a multi-faceted and complicated theory. Indeed,
some of its controversy stemmed from its very complexity. Edward Rothstein
of the
New York Times
quoted the 1988 comment of biologist Gunter Stent on NGS as, "I
consider myself not too dumb. I am a professor of molecular biology and
chairman of the neurobiology section of the National Academy of Sciences,
so I should understand it. But I don't." Other critics found
the theory either derivative or based on incorrect interpretations of
other models of the mind. But Edelman ignored the naysayers and quietly
continued his pioneering work.

Preeminent Neuroscientist

After his first book on NGS, Edelman went on to write several others
elucidating his ideas for both the scientific and lay communities. He
started by writing the two volumes that completed his initial trilogy,
Topobiology: An Introduction to Molecular Embryology
(1988) and
The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness
(1989). He followed those up with
Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind
, published in 1992,
A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination
(2000), which presented new data on the neural correlates of conscious
experience, and
Wider than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness
(2005), which included a model of the biology of consciousness. It was in
the latter book that Edelman, unenviably, attempted to articulate his
ideas for a lay audience. Additionally, he had authored more than 500
research publications by 2006.

By 2005 Edelman had added other responsibilities to his resume besides
heading up the Neurosciences Institute. Those included serving as chairman
and professor of neurobiology at the Scripps Research Institute,
scientific chairman of the Neurosciences Research Program, and president
of
the Neurosciences Research Foundation. His institute was thriving on its
own campus in La Jolla, with 36 research fellows studying nearly every
field of neuroscience. Each fellow was fully funded by the institute for
up to four years, in order to insulate him or her from the vagaries and
distractions of grant writing and laboratory politics, as Edelman felt
such independence was necessary for proper original research. And the
institute itself was an interesting reflection of its founder: one
building devoted to theory, another to experimentation, and a third (a
concert hall) to music.

Edelman's unique and significant contributions to science garnered
him many accolades, honors, and awards throughout the years. In 1954 he
received the Spencer Morris Award from the University of Pennsylvania; in
1965, the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry of American Chemical
Society; and in 1969, the Annual Alumni Award from Ursinus College. He
gave the Carter-Wallace Lectures at Princeton University in 1965, the
National Institutes of Health Biophysics and Bioorganic Chemistry
Lectureship at Cornell University in 1971, and the Darwin Centennial
Lectures at Rockefeller University in 1971. He was the first Felton
Bequest Visiting Professor at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for
Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, in 1972, and became a Vincent
Astor Distinguished Professor at Rockefeller University in 1974. Other
awards included the Albert Einstein Commemorative Award, the Buchman
Memorial Award from the California Institute of Technology, and the Rabbi
Shai Schaknai Memorial Prize. And he held memberships in numerous
professional and scientific societies. He was one of the few international
members of the Academy of Sciences, Institute of France.

Despite the controversy surrounding his theories, and perhaps even because
of it, Edelman was indisputably one of the preeminent neuroscientists of
his time. His advocates found his ideas breathtaking. His adversaries
rarely dismissed him out of hand. And the potential impact of his ideas,
whatever one felt about them, was enormous. As Rothstein wrote,
"(Edelman's) vision can also spur discomfort, because it
implies that there is no supervising soul or self—nobody is
standing behind the curtain. This, for Dr. Edelman, is Darwin's
final burden."